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Sunday, 15 May 2011

my 'Malvern Trail' in progress early this morning; working in our caravan

My last day at Malvern, and I'm almost through with my self-imposed challenge of a post-a-day on all four of my Blogs. It's not been made any easier by the fact that Blogger crashed for over 24 hours! It's been a fantastic show - I've blogged by candlelight and walked the Showground for four days to the point of exhaustion. It was not until this morning that I was able to get out my little Malvern Trail journal - my trail is documented in my blog posts (click on each one to follow if you wish). I'll post the paper trail once we are home and it is finished. My pic below shows what one can do with unfinished or unwanted journals - turn them into firebricks!

Saturday, 14 May 2011

The Malvern Spring Gardening Show (one more day to go - Sunday) may be primarily about gardens, but I'm always on the search for Journaling inspirations. And I don't have far to look. The Tudor ladies tending the parterre in Lady Alice's Garden (or rather tending their complexions within a sheltered arbour) might have had me snipping fabric from their dresses to add to my journal pages, had I not been fascinated by the design of the garden, taken from the the contemporary 'Gardener's Labyrinth'. And none of your theatrical costumiers - the ladies made their own period costume replicas, and very fine they were, too.

Herbs of course played an important part in all Tudor gardens, and I coveted the realistic pots of herbs discovered in 'The Country Living Marquee'. Taken apart (what a despicable act to something so perfect), they could be stitched into any journal, or textile herbal. Maybe I'll have to go back there tomorrow; I feel I deserve a little treat, after all the problems with blogging over the last 48 hours!

Friday, 13 May 2011

a panel set within a stone wall; not sure if it represents an insect hotel - must check tomorrow

Last night (which was Wednesday, before Blogger crashed) I managed the words on page one of my Mavern trail, and the outline of the hills (again!) as seen from the caravan, but nothing more. And I knew I would not have time this evening to even get our the colours, or a pen. So whilst wandering around the Show today, taking pictures of gardens and equipment, people and plants, I photographed quirky things that I could incorporate into my journal trail; if not this one, some other; image transferred or photo manipulated. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and my day overflowed with colour and shape, pattern and texture; sometimes a living thing - the leaf of a herb, the softness of silk, the whorl of a path between lush plantings. Tomorrow is education day and I plan to look at how children view the world of gardening, through the many educational activities on offer at this marvellous event. I think there will be the opportunity to print botanicals using a Victorian press. Lucky children.

Created by students at Pershore College; the globe is surrounded by light and dark plants, representing the sun and the moon

This post was written before Blogger crashed - lost track of days and time now, as I work through a post a day on four blogs. They are stacking up!

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

I'm back at Malvern, within sight of the bow-backed hills. Writing for various clients re the Spring Gardening Show (on from tomorrow until Sunday (inclusive). A could not come away without my journaling bag, am making the tiniest of journals from an old map. 'Malvern Trail' is its title. The pic above shows my experimental piece: map with white primer applied and scraped off, then spritzed with glimmer mist and something similar from Craft Notions. Then I tried a quick outline sketch of the two hills I can see from the caravan window. Coloured with Neocolor II, melded together with Golden clear gloss gel (which I usually use for images transfers.

Here's the actual prepped journal, awaiting words and sketches. The whole thing will be backed with some stiff brown cotton I found lurking in the attic. I plan to free-machine stitch flowers on each 'page' (so the journal will be double-sided) with the title lettering also produced on the sewing machine.

I plan to blog every day of the Show - on all four of my blogs: quite a 'blogathon' in fact. That is if the showground WiFi is cooperative. Each blog post (there should be sixteen in all) will be different; my blogs all interact, so if you want to follow my Trail, please click from one blog to another. I'll now move on to the next blog.

About Me: (alias 'Wild Somerset Child')

I am a journalist and writer passionate about many things: landscape and the environment; folklore, history and places; books and poetry; creating mixed-media journals in fabric and paper. I am equally addicted to sourcing good food and growing vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers - weaving together all these topics into a cohesive whole.

I did it!

My very first slide show outlining my creative journey which I successfully presented to our local embroiderers' guild in October 2013. Since then, I have created other slide-shows on my work for various organisations.

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